Skinny Love (Young and Beautiful)
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: She goes by many names and takes many forms, like a shifting shadow on a wall. Many men have called the Black Widow beautiful; they all mean something different, seeing what they want to see. But when this star-spangled soldier breathes the word on to her lips, she believes him./One-shot. Dedicated to Lauralot. 4 times men thought the Black Widow beautiful; 1 time it meant more.


**A/N:This fanfic is a surprise present for Lauralot**, who is undeniably among the best Captain America fanfic writers on fanfiction. **AND I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU is her Bucky Barnes recovery story, and it's currently the second most reviewed fic in the entire Captain America archive on fanfiction, for good reason.** It's beautifully written, well plotted, heart-wrenching, extensively researched, and incredibly engaging. I advise that you read it with a box of tissues on hand. It is, by far, my favorite fanfic of all time.

**Lauralot read the entirety of my other Cap/Widow fanfic, BE MY SHIELD (FIVE TIMES WE TOUCHED)**, and left a review towards the end of the story which read: "Normally I don't even read stories that prominently feature a romance because I just tend not to care (as I said, I don't really ship things) but this story is just... it's not even that I like it in SPITE of the relationships. The relationships are what makes the actions and incidents so compelling. You have enthralled me with something I don't even usually like..." It suffices to say that this will always be one of my favorite reviews ever (I couldn't stop grinning.) **So, in return for her fabulous writing, dedicated reviewing, and random nonsensical conversations via PM at absurd hours** (GO TO THE CHAIR AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE... our inside jokes make little sense,) **I present: a shipping fanfic for the girl who doesn't ship things. Because that makes sense.**

**Anyway — surprise, Lauren! I hope you like this. ***crosses fingers* *uncrosses fingers in order to type*

**~x~X~x~**

**SKINNY LOVE (YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL)**

**~x~X~x~**

_Come on, skinny love, just last the year_

_Pour a little salt, we were never here_

_My my my, my my my, my-my, my-my_

_Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer_

**~ "Skinny Love," Birdy**

**~x~X~x~ **

**1.**

The other women of the Black Widow program have been asleep for nearly an hour. Natalia Romanova rises from her cot, barely breathing. Her feet meet the floor with hardly a sound, and she slips out the door like a shadow — like darkness itself, unseen and unheard.

She will become the Black Widow, even if it should kill her — which the Winter Soldier, her handler and teacher, is liable to do. Nevertheless, she needs extra practice if she wants to rise above, so she clamps down on her fear, shoving it down into the pit of her stomach, down and down until it hardly exists.

_Meet me in the training room at midnight,_ the Soldier said. _Not a moment later, or I'll have already gone._

Natalia does not think to hesitate. She is purely a child of the Red Room. These scarlet walls, cramped cots, training mats, and interrogation rooms are the closest thing to home that she can recall.

She's eighteen and has never eaten chocolate (_sustenance is regulated,_) never driven a car with the windows down (_but has driven over bodies, felt the snaps of their spines_,) never been shopping (_uniforms are provided_,) never gone swimming (_save for the training exercise last winter, when she nearly had hypothermia by the time it was over_,) never sung (_her throat is raw from shouting_.)

The closest thing she has to music is measures of drills, notes of skin against bone, a metronome of gunfire, a melody of orders, a harmony of screams.

She is becoming a machine, and she doesn't care because another option has never crossed her mind. Defiance is not in her programming. Victory is, though, and so Natalia sneaks into the training room, knowing that her handler will be waiting.

He's no older than her, really. A firm jawline, a touch of stubble, hair longer than she's ever seen on a boy; and his left arm is pure machine, all the soft, feeling, fleshy parts stripped away. At first sight, this unnerved Natalia. Then she realized it was not unlike how she imagined her heart to be, and she felt the strangest stab of kinship, like she had never known.

The Winter Soldier is her handler, and she is his student, but they are both, in essence, weapons: loaded rifles in senseless hands that they will never understand, but do not question.

"Romanova," the Soldier says as she enters. In the dim chamber, his eyes are dark, gleaming like a predator's.

Natalia nods. "Soldier," she greets, because he has never shared his name with the Black Widow operatives, though he has been here for at least a month now.

"Call me James."

"James... what?"

The operatives are addressed by their last names, always. But the Soldier smiles, sudden and startling, an upward quirk of the lips that she barely understands, and says, "Just James. All right?"

"All right," Natalia echoes, her breath hitching. She is not used to being asked of her opinion. The Soldier is harsh to the women in training, all cruelty and curses; but here, tonight, alone, his voice is soft, like what she imagines a blanket would feel like (_they're trained to endure the harshest conditions while they sleep, and she's shivered through many a cold night._)

He leads her through the traditional forms — the punches and kicks that are already all but branded into her bones — and in this he is not James but the Soldier, forged of steel, unrelenting. His stare glints in the half-light as he observes her movements, providing instruction when he sees fit.

When it is over, Natalia's muscles are screaming for a reprieve. Her breaths come in short, sharp gasps. She wants to lean against the wall for support, but she will not show weakness in the Soldier's presence.

Natalia pulls her shoulders back. "Impressed?" she says, the word laced with bitterness.

But the Soldier says, "Always," in a voice that is at once both forthright and frightening, and she wonders how much he has watched her during training, and how it is that she failed to notice. "You are well prepared for the coming tests. But real missions will require more from you." He straightens, flexing his metal arm. "Are you ready for that?"

Natalia takes a shaky breath. "Yes," she says.

"So arrogant." The Soldier's jaw clenches, but the ghost of a smile tugs at his lips. "You know nothing of war, nothing of true combat," he says, and a little shudder goes through his arm of flesh, but it quickly stills. "You have fought the other operatives, certainly. But you're stronger than they are. They're not a true challenge."

Natalia's face heats. She isn't sure whether to consider this dismissal or flattery, but it throws her off balance regardless. "They're all I have," she says.

"You are the Black Widow program's best initiate," the Soldier counters. "To deny you further training would be thoughtless." His mouth curves into a true smile, cool and vicious, as he leans into a crouch, his mechanical arm upraised. "Defend yourself, Romanova."

Natalia has only just grasped the command when his metal fist slams into her jaw. She has been struck for disobedience before — been beaten within an inch of her life in her early years here, before she learned the wisdom of compliance — been wounded for failure to succeed at a mission, for failure to respond immediately to a question, for failure to remain standing during long hours of endurance that tried her every muscle — but the Soldier strikes her now as a challenge, as a _taunt_.

Natalia staggers at the impact. Pain shoots through her jaw, and blood drips from the corner of her mouth. She blinks to stabilize her vision.

"I gave you an order," the Soldier says, his voice a bestial growl.

Fury floods Natalia's veins. Unthinking, she launches herself at the Soldier. Battle transfigures every aspect of her, bringing her jagged edges sharply into focus. She is feral, ferocious, a blur of sheer power and wild adrenaline. It is elbows and knees, teeth and nails, brutal. Visceral.

It ends with the crack of her skull against the mat, her breath smacked from her lungs as the Soldier looms over her, larger than life, his hands (both metal and flesh) pinning her arms to the floor.

He's incredible, unthinkable. Seconds pass, neither of them daring to speak. Natalia lies still, winded, panting. He watches her, eyes wide. His irises are cerulean like rivers, like uncharted waters — more blue than anything she's ever seen — and something inside of her loosens, unravels, at the sight.

Natalia gasps, tasting blood — a rusty tang that makes her spit. "How was that, James?"

The Soldier's metal grip slackens. Still, his body hovers over hers. She is strikingly aware of their closeness. Heat rises off of him in waves. She imagines that he can hear her racing heartbeat.

"Beautiful," he says, his voice low, the word thick with other implications, and she doesn't know what happens first — her hands behind his neck or his fingers buried in her hair — but suddenly they're kissing and nothing else matters, nothing else exists. She's spent her entire life being told when to stand, where to sprint, who to strike; this is the first physical act she's ever chosen, and she's lost in the rush of it, sucked underwater.

She's deadly, and he likes her that way.

**~x~X~x~**

_Will you still love me_

_When I'm no longer young and beautiful?_

_Will you still love me_

_When I got nothing but my aching soul?_

_**~ "Young and Beautiful," Lana Del Rey**_

**~x~X~x~ **

**2.**

Assassinations are infinitely more complex when the target is, himself, a killer for hire.

Nick Fury specifically warned Natasha that traditional tactics would be useless in this instance. The enemy in question is an ex-Soviet operative — once an agent of Mother Russia, now a freelance mercenary who spills blood for entertainment. The file provided by Fury lists him as _Volkov, Andrei_, and the mission concerning him is both high priority and high risk.

Natasha lives and breathes adrenaline; it's the only thing that keeps hernightmares at bay. So she says yes on impulse, her fingers itching for the handle of a knife.

To simply invade Andrei Volkov's home would be unworkable. The man is bloodshed incarnate, aware of the slighest indication of danger. To kill a killer, Natasha will have to use more reliable methods — those which achieve consistent results among male targets.

Beauty, too, can be a subtle weapon, a thin and deadly blade slid into an unsuspecting heart. Natasha was raised in the knowledge that every aspect of her was capable of inflicting or deflecting pain, and her body is no different. It is a blessing on S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, that she knows the power of a pretty face; it is also a curse, because she has never seen physicality as anything but a negotiation tool, and to let a man hold her purely out of affection is a foreign concept entirely.

Before boarding the Quinjet, Clint Barton pauses by her briefing room to wish her luck. He all but stops breathing when he sees her outfit: a sleek black dress, with both a sweeping neckline and a back made almost entirely of lace. It clings to every inch of her body, accentuating every soft curve.

Clint gapes, barely blinking. "Playing dress-up, 'Tasha? I thought you'd have better things to do."

"Don't worry." She slides a slender knife into her leather boot, a wicked smile playing on her lips. "There will be blood tonight."

"Do one thing for me," Clint says, extending an open hand. There's a thin bracelet in his palm, with a little glimmering gem at its center. "Wear this. In case things don't go as planned. Twist the gem, and I'll get a signal on my comlink."

Natasha sighs, but she takes the gift anyway.

At first, everything does go according to plan. As expected, she finds Volkov upon his usual bar stool, downing copious amounts of alcohol between kills. He takes notice the moment Natasha steps into the room — the entire bar takes notice, really — and she promptly seats herself beside him, ordering a glass of wine that he immediately pays for.

There is conversation, but Natasha does most of the talking; Volkov's mouth is occupied with his drink, his eyes thoroughly distracted by her highly questionable attire. Briefly, she is grateful for his reputation — every other man in the bar grants him an impressive degree of personal space, and so she needn't fend off unwanted advances.

After a short while of Natasha talking while he smiles and nods, glassy-eyed, Volkov orders her another drink. It is at this point that the neatly planned series of events goes awry — another patron of the bar grows suddenly bold, and proceeds to lay a hand upon her bare shoulder without the slightest consideration of consent.

Natasha has to grit her teeth and act intimidated, even frightened, because if she lets the assassin bleed through for even a moment, Volkov will realize exactly what she is. As she softly asks the stranger to leave her alone, (adding a whimper of _please _for effect,) he mumbles several comments on her attire that don't bear repeating. Behind her, she hears the bartender slide her next glass of wine over to Volkov. Finally, she raises her voice and thrusts the stranger's hand away, and as Volkov casts a furious glance in his direction, the stranger makes a prompt exit.

"Sorry," Volkov says thickly.

"It's all right," Natasha says, reaching for her glass. "I have you to protect me."

Volkov smiles, his gums black like a wolf's.

It does not occur to Natasha that, for the briefest instant, her eyes were not on her drink. It also does not occur to her that Volkov is perhaps more brains than brawn, and that he may already have an inkling of her real identity, and that he may have signaled the unsavory stranger (_another mercenary, most likely_) to create a distraction.

It does not occur to her, when she takes a sip of her wine, that it tastes faintly metallic.

When Natasha follows Volkov back to his hotel room, her mind starts spinning, tossed back and forth as if upon waves, and she blames it on the alcohol. By the time he inserts his key card, swallowing has become oddly difficult, and there is a burning in her chest, fiercer than anything she has ever felt. As she crosses the threshold, the first convulsion strikes — she sprawls forward on to the carpet, Volkov slamming the door behind her. She tries to take a breath, but instead, the alcohol comes back up, searing her throat, and when she looks, there's blood in it, too.

Volkov looms over her, coolly amused. "Did you think I wouldn't know another assassin on sight?"

Natasha wants to answer, but convulses, gasping through the muscle spasms. There's nothing left in her stomach save for acid and blood. She retches, her insides aflame.

"I promise, I don't have an affinity for suffering," Volkov says, smiling with his black gums. "Arsenic is a lovely poison. I dissolved quite the handful of powder in your drink. Your death will be blessedly quick."

Natasha chokes out a particularly nasty curse. Her stomach is on fire, flames licking at her ribs from the inside. Her arms feel drained of strength, her palms tingling, but she reaches for the bracelet at her wrist all the same, twisting the gem with trembling fingers.

The Quinjet is hovering outside the hotel within minutes. Clint leaps straight through the window, glass shattering in his wake, and Volkov is so utterly shocked, he doesn't even scream as the archer's arrow pierces his throat, silencing his gloating forever.

Clint kneels beside her, eyes wide with concern. "What happened, 'Tasha?"

She coughs, and there's blood in her mouth. "Arsenic," she spits.

"Damn."

"I can think of much more colorful curses for this situation."

Clint laughs as he sticks a needle into her wrist, then glances at a readout. "That's a heavy dose of arsenic, for sure," he says as he tucks the device into his pocket. "You need emergency medical attention right now."

"Tell me something I don't know," she sighs, her vision swimming.

"You look beautiful."

Natasha almost laughs at that. Her skin is riddled with brown spots, her dress dark with blood; she lies here twitching and trembling as the poison does its work. Her scarlet curls have fallen loose and untamed over her bare shoulders. "Beautiful," she coughs, her throat raw.

"Beautiful," Clint insists, and his eyes sparkle.

"Like usual, you mean," Natasha mumbles, even as Clint injects her with some kind of sleeping agent. _Beautiful_, she thinks, wishing she could believe him. Her world drips away into dark.

She's reckless, and he likes her that way.

**~x~X~x~**

_Tell my love to wreck it all_

_Cut out all the ropes and let me fall_

_My my my, my my my, my-my, my-my_

_Right in the moment, this order's tall_

_**~ "Skinny Love," Birdy**_

**~x~X~x~ **

**3.**

At long last, Natasha has completed her report on Tony Stark. _NOT RECOMMENDED_, she stamps upon his file. This is a grievous understatement. Tony Stark is not merely unhelpful as a potential Avenger; he has the potential to sabotage the entire initiative with his exceptional arrogance. With only technical phrases to choose from, though, _NOT RECOMMENDED _will suffice.

Natasha is walking briskly through the halls of Stark Tower (_must everything here have his abysmal name plastered upon it?_) when she hears his voice, teasing, at her back.

"Rushman," Stark says, and she can hear the smirk in his voice.

"Romanoff," she corrects without breaking stride.

"Close enough."

"I have no desire to speak with you."

"That's a shame," he says, all confidence. "People tell me I'm quite the conversationalist."

"I'm sure they do."

"You still owe me an apology, by the way."

At that, Natasha pauses in her tracks. Her hands curl into fists at her sides. "I was completing my assignment, by whatever means necessary," she says, turning to look him full in the face. "If you're waiting for me to grovel before your money and your bad attitude, you'll be waiting for a damn long time."

Stark arches an eyebrow. "Aren't you feisty?"

"I'm tempted to force your smart mouth shut."

"I'd like to see you try."

Natasha clenches her jaw. "I'm not like your other women, Stark. It takes more than a clever tongue to get me into your bed."

"I'm also brilliant."

"Of course."

"And wealthy."

"Of course."

His lips tilt upward at the corners. "I am Iron Man."

"So I've heard," Natasha says, her blood boiling.

Stark watches her with dark, glazed eyes. After a breath, he says, "You're very beautiful. Stunning, actually. An exquisite portrait of the feminine, and to be honest, I'm finding it terribly difficult to look away."

Natasha blinks, her head tilted ever so slightly. She says nothing.

Stark bites his lip. "That usually works," he says.

"I'm not your usual."

"Precisely. You're S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resident femme fatale, and you're pretending to be professional, and I like that." He flashes a winning smile; it reeks of polished charm. "You know what I think?"

Natasha's tone is sardonic. "What do you think, Stark?"

"I think you like me, Romanoff. I think, in the depths of your cold, cold heart, you want you and me to find a quiet place and —"

"I barely know you."

"I can think of some very creative ways to get to know each other better."

Natasha's chest clamps. "We might be close to strangers, Stark," she says, "but I know what you are."

He swallows. "Do enlighten me."

"You're a womanizer," she says, her disgust plainly evident. "You charm girls into your bed and have them escorted out in the morning. You talk big and smart, and you turn up the charm, and the girls giggle and smile, and by morning you've forgotten their names —"

"That hurts, Rushman."

Natasha presses her nails into her palms. "_Romanoff_."

Stark shrugs, nonchalant. "Changing your name like most girls change clothes is more than a little confusing."

"Be honest," she says, her voice rising despite herself. "You can't remember half the girls you've held in the dark, and you like it that way because it makes you feel special. But you're not special, Stark."

Stark laughs, bemused. "Really."

"The armor is defined by the man who wears it," Natasha says. "And you're not even half the man our initiative needs." She turns on her heel, her folder tucked neatly under her arm. "Goodbye, Tony Stark."

As she leaves, the only sound is her high heels against the tiled corridor. She looses a breath upon turning the corner. At last, she is free of this thoughtless man. But behind her, she hears his voice.

"JARVIS?"

_YES, MR. STARK?_

"I think she likes me."

Natasha has higher standards and so does S.H.I.E.L.D., and he'll never deserve to see what she looks like beneath the leather bodysuit because that's all he'd ever see — another naked woman — and what she longs for is a man who will love her naked soul.

But she's seductive, and he likes her that way.

**~x~X~x~**

_Dear Lord, when I get to heaven_

_Please let me bring my man_

_When he comes, tell me that You'll let him in_

_Father, tell me if You can_

_**~ "Young and Beautiful," Lana Del Rey**_

**~x~X~x~**

**4.**

Loki Laufeyson wants anything he cannot have.

Natasha sees the confusion of desires in his eyes, the tug between becoming a better leader and becoming the stronger son of Odin, if only in spirit. At the barest mention of his elder brother, Thor, the trickster god's irises flash with wicked darkness, like the edge of a blade.

Loki does not want a gilded crown upon his head, or a cape upon his unfledged shoulders, or even a realm in the palm of his hand. Love, its full breadth withheld, has eroded his armor, leaving a carved out hollow where his heart ought to have been.

Loki is the thunder to Thor's lightning; he requires the preceding flash of his brother's might to even exist. He is all crash and roar without effect. He can no longer desire independent of competition — he kills because Thor is a warrior, conquers because Thor is the rightful king, schemes because cleverness alone can balance Thor's raw muscle.

Loki is a foreign branch grafted into a royal family tree; he is welcome as an outsider, but he will spend his whole life trying to truly belong. In that vain quest, he has molded himself into a distorted echo of Thor Odinson. It torments him with every breath, but he knows no other path.

And so it follows that, since Thor has found a lover in Jane Foster, Loki observes Natasha with barely masked desire.

If she were any other woman, this would unnerve Natasha to the core — but a critical segment of her Red Room training was in seduction (and subsequent murder,) so she is accustomed to lingering looks from unfamiliar men.

"You would appear as a friend," Loki says, his lips lifting in a sad, sad imitation of a smile. True joy has long been elusive, slipping through his fingers like so much Midgardian sand. "As a balm."

By his very nature, Loki is the Asgardian god of mischief. Natasha doesn't want to know what mischievous thoughts he might be having right now. She is painfully aware of the tightness of her bodysuit, of the way his gaze travels across her body, setting her heart afire. His eyes glint; they might have been beautiful, had they not stirred with madness.

Loki is deluded and dangerous, and Natasha would never for a moment consider returning his feelings. But his cool gaze makes her pulse jump all the same.

When Loki says, "Barton told me everything," her false apathy nearly falters, because there is much for Clint Barton to share on the subject of the Black Widow — what her lips taste like (_hope_, he once told her,) the heat of her skin in the dark, the soft rhythm of her breathing as she sleeps.

"I won't touch Barton, not until I make him kill you — slowly, _intimately_, in every way he knows you fear — and he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull."

Loki's voice is laced with bitterness, with unspoken want, because it was Thor that the Asgardian women always loved, and it is Natasha that Clint will always desire, and he is alone, and he is a god, and it should not be.

There is purest hatred in his eyes. _Beautiful woman_, they say. _Why couldn't you see me, beyond the shadow of my brother? Why couldn't you want me, when I would have given all my love?_

"You're a monster," is her answer, but it rings hollow because there are monsters in Banner and Barton, too, and there will always be a monster inside of her.

Loki is at her back, and furthermore, imprisoned — but she can still sense the unrequited want thrumming in his blood, even now. Even after her flat denial of his every hope.

She's defiant, and he likes her that way.

**~x~X~x~**

_And in the morning, I'll be with you_

_But it will be a different kind_

_Cause I'll be holding all the tickets_

_And you'll be paying all the fines_

_**~ "Skinny Love," Birdy**_

**~x~X~x~ **

**5.**

Steve Rogers trails a hand down her back, heat sweeping across her skin everywhere he touches her. His other hand rests on her waist, holding her upright. Blood drips steadily from her arm, her chest, the side of her neck.

It's been six months since she saved his life, and old enemies have continued to arise, like ghosts through gunsmoke she long ago left behind. Since the splintering of HYDRA, the world has seen her as she really is.

This is not without consequence.

Natasha was walking to her apartment when the flashbang grenade went off — and she would have gone still merely at the sight of it, given the memories it evoked — but the actual _flash _and _bang _did their work, and suddenly she was on the ground, a wicked, curved knife pressed to her throat while a thickly accented Russian voice promised to kill her slowly, though she barely heard it through the ringing in her ears. A thin needle slid into her wrist, accompanied by some sort of nerve agent; by the time the paralysis ebbed, she was already bleeding heavily, and taking down the Russian wasn't easy, either. When it was over, she was drenched in crimson. It was a miracle that she managed to comm Steve at all.

It's a miracle that he came so quickly.

Her pulse racing, her forehead resting against Steve's collar bone, Natasha closes her eyes. They stay that way for a moment, breathing hard, huddled close against whatever lies ahead.

Natasha sighs. "Steve," she says, but she almost calls him _Rogers _because keeping him at arm's length was so much less complicated. "I'm covered in blood."

"And I just bought you a new jacket," he quips, but he's smiling.

Natasha watches the stain blossom across her T-shirt, but her stare quickly shifts to her scarlet palms and stays there, transfixed. For a moment she's somewhere else, and _she didn't even know the target's name and he died so _slowly _and there's so much _blood _when a knife slashes the wrong artery, and _this _is what it means to be the Black Widow,_ and all that her trembling lips can manage is, "It won't wash out."

Steve swallows, understanding that her concern extends beyond the jacket, and then says, "It's okay."

Natasha bites her lip, not trusting herself to speak. Steve lifts a hand to cup her face, gently raising her chin. She looks and his deep blue gaze holds hers, unwavering.

"You're beautiful," he breathes against her lips.

"Blood-soaked," she corrects, and her face heats with shame.

Steve Rogers smiles. His eyes are bright, twin stars in the dark. "My beautiful contradiction," he says, and then he pulls her mouth to his because he likes her that way.

**~x~X~x~**

_I know you will_

_I know you will_

_I know that you will_

_Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?_

_**~ "Young and Beautiful," Lana Del Rey**_

**~x~X~x~**

**A/N: **I started this a couple of weeks ago, long before I heard from Lauren that life has been treating her pretty badly lately – in response, I went back to this project and finally finished it. Hang in there, Lauren. Writing something to (hopefully) brighten your day is the most I can do, but with any luck, it'll help at least a little bit.

These individual scenes were all written out of order, as inspiration dictated; I wrote part of Bucky's section, then Steve's section, then finished Bucky's section, then Tony's, then Loki's (at which point an enormous thunderstorm came out of nowhere while I was writing, which was somewhat frightening,) and finally, Clint's.

I'm probably on an NSA watchlist now, thanks to the research I did on poisons for Clint's section until I finally settled on arsenic. If my description of Natasha's reaction to the arsenic teeters on the edge of unbelievable, keep in mind that according to the comic book canon, Natasha received the Red Room's version of the super-soldier serum, so her resistance to everything is much higher than that of a normal person, and her reactions to poisons might be atypical (though I don't think she has Steve's can't-get-drunk quirk; it was a different serum, after all, and for goodness sake, she's Russian and loves her vodka.)

Another random fact: Andrei means warrior, and Volkov comes from the Russian word for wolf.

I think that, as I wrote in Clint's section, Natasha was trained (not unlike Bucky, her superior) to see every part of herself as a weapon, as a tool to be used – and that includes her body. As a woman, that aspect of her training was probably far more acute than it was for Bucky, if it existed for him at all. As a result, I think Natasha had a very hard time after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. with learning to navigate any degree of physical involvement without automatically giving herself completely away in order to feel in control.

I also think that, as a result of said training, Natasha has heard the word "beautiful" in many different contexts, and people usually mean something else when they say it. Steve was the first person to use it to encompass every aspect of her, not just what someone wanted to see. And I think, given some time to understand and embrace that, Natasha felt truly _loved _for the first time in a very long time.

This story fits neatly into the fanon established by my other Marvel fanfics, and actually has specific references to "Seven Devils" and "Be My Shield (Five Times We Touched)", if you're looking closely. If you liked this story, maybe click on my profile and take a look at my other work? I also have trailers for both aforementioned stories on my YouTube profile, under "Shadows of a Dream," if you're interested.

As always, thank you very much for reading!


End file.
